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Broken Bethlehem gambles on Vegas

LAS VEGAS is coming to Bethlehem and it's building a brand new inn. After years of controversy over the redevelopment of one of America's most historic industrial cities, the residents of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, have turned to a casino to help to restore long-lost prosperity.

Construction started last month on an $800m casino and hotel on the derelict site of Bethlehem Steel, the industrial behemoth that once built guns and armour plate for US navy battleships in the largest machine shop in the world.

The project is going ahead despite opposition from community groups, which are worried that the town that calls itself America's Christmas City is being turned into an eastern outpost of Las Vegas - known as Sin City.

Yet the scheme has support from conservationists, who had begun to despair that some of the greatest relics of America's early 20th-century industrial might would be demolished or left to crumble.